Maybe this is a crazy questions but why are Tawanese eggs, the yolk orange? I have a feeling this is not good for you, but maybe it is better for you ? Anyway the eggs here scare me. What is going on with this?
Perhaps the eggs here are higher quality than you’re used to?
It isn’t difficult to get organic or even free range eggs in Taiwan BTW. Most of the traditional markets have them.
I can’t speak to the color of the yolk, but I eat a lot of eggs and haven’t had any problems in 12 years.
they orange yolk eggs is relatively new and more expensive. Its the different feed the chickens get.
I just had a couple of eggs with lunch and the yolks were definitely yellow. I normally buy eggs in the traditional market however these were from one of the 10-packs that 7-11 sells.
There are some eggs that are more orange and they say on the cover that the chickens are fed a vitamin rich diet. In other words the yokrs are supposed to be richer in color.
The only orange yolk eggs I get are at costco and they have pretty good quality control at least compared to most places in Taiwan.
I get more concerned about the lack of refrigeration. I know it’s okay to leave eggs out for awhile but I don’t really like it. At least twice I’ve cracked open rotten eggs. A couple of other times the yolk was strange.
Eggs that have a stronger yellow color is preferred by consumers. So the manufacturers add stuff to the chicken feed to make the eggs more yellow. I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with the eggs then being healthier. It has more to do with the perception by consumers that it then must be healthier.
It’s just like some of the brown sugars that actually are white refined sugar that has been colored brown. It’s no longer brown unrefined sugar, but people don’t understand the whole truth just the part about brown sugar being healthier than white sugar.
Having eggs unrefrigerated freaked me out at first too. But my impression now is that the eggs here are less likely to be contaminated than back in the states. At home i would here of some salmonella poisoning outbreak linked to eggs from time to time even though eggs have constant refrigeration . Maybe it happens here too, but i never hear of it and seems to be less of a concern. I’ve eaten many eggs here less than fully cooked and never had a problem. The mass production of animal products in the states seems filthier despite having the USDA
I think I started the reply before the can sugar bit was added, and I see you have responded to a post that I later edited as well. 
Anyway… my point is. Food coloring can be used by marketers to feed myths and misconceptions. And I think that’s what happening to these egg yolks.
In the UK eggs are sold unrefrigerated in the supermarkets too. Salmonella poisoning is either in the egg or it isn’t. Refrigeration doesn’t make any difference.
The reason the yolks are yellow , as far as I know, is that the chicken are fed corn and a compound containing vitamin C. Naive consumers assume this is the healthier more organic version judging by the richer color. It’s marketing exactly as el burro said. There was a brand called sunny egg that may have started this trend here, now the other guys are under pressure to follow the trend.
In Taiwan you can see there are white and brown eggs. Probably better indicators for health are the thickness of the egg shell and consistency and even size of the eggs.
My grandmother had free range chickens, the eggs did taste great but they didn’t have such yellow yokes and she left them unrefrigerated. Even though sometimes we tasted some that were a bit ‘old’ there never seemed to be any danger of getting sick from them.
There is a real problem with labeling of eggs here as it’s unclear as to the origins of the eggs in most cases. Also long shelf-lives might indicate that antibiotics have been added.
Eggs, in addition to other dairy products, should be considered a national fucking disgrace considering the shite one must consume as it is sold to us.
[quote=“Abacus”]
I get more concerned about the lack of refrigeration. I know it’s okay to leave eggs out for awhile but I don’t really like it. At least twice I’ve cracked open rotten eggs. A couple of other times the yolk was strange.[/quote]
Everywhere I’ve lived eggs were sold unrefrigerated, though most people I know have always stuck them in the fridge at home.
Old boyfriend’s family (Chinese) used to buy tonnes of eggs and leave them all in a cupboard (in Australia, no a/c). Surprised me at first, but then I got used to it; don’t remember cracking a bad egg before.
I think we’ve had a bad egg at my house here once, but that egg had been in the fridge for a very, very, very long time.
You can buy chicken feed that has a whole range of additives and food dyes and so on to make the yolks any bloody colour you want.
and Salmonella is due to chicken shit getting on the eggs: refrigeration helps to reduce the growth of Salmonella IF THE CHICKENS HAVE SALMONELLA in their shit, which is not totally unheard of and often not dangerous to the chickens themselves, AND IF WET SHIT GETS ON A WET EGG . If the chickens don’t have salmonella, then the eggs don’t and there’s no point refrigerating the eggs: they’re covered by a barrier that’s mostly bacteria proof if they stay dry. The barrier is compromised if the egg gets wet.
So, in places where salmonella is rampant like US chicken farms, then eggs must be refrigerated (and well cooked before eating). Other places like Australia and Japan have no such requirement. Raw or semi-raw eggs are a common food in both places. By law, and with labelling to that effect, eggs MUST be well cooked in the USA and I dare say yu’d need to do the same in Taiwan, as well.
Salmonella: +1 to what urodacus (and Petrichor) said. There’s no need to refrigerate eggs, but if you break the shell you should eat it or throw it away. I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that washing eggs can degrade the bacterial barrier provided by the shell, so eggs with chicken poo on them (from the market, say) are often left uncleaned.
Colour: it depends on the chicken’s diet. Battery chickens are fed shite and chemicals and I’m sure that weird pasty yellow colour is not normal.
My sister keeps chickens which are fed on kitchen scraps, corn and whatnot. They pootle around “free range” and probably eat all sorts of other grot too (chickens are pretty filthy animals really). The eggs taste better than shop-bought ones though, and the yolks are a sort of orange colour, but as HH says, I wouldn’t have thought it’s a reliable indicator of a healthy chicken.
Back home, the standard factory farm egg yolks were yellow, while the eggs we got at home that were free range and where the chickens had a good variety in their diets like weeds, bugs, worms, kitchen scraps, etc., were orange.
Hence I prefer orange yolk.
[quote=“Charlie Phillips”]Back home, the standard factory farm egg yolks were yellow, while the eggs we got at home that were free range and where the chickens had a good variety in their diets like weeds, bugs, worms, kitchen scraps, etc., were orange.
Hence I prefer orange yolk.[/quote]
Yeah, when I was growing up, on the farm, where the eggs were just produced for home use, it was pretty much acknowledged that if the chickens were grass-fed (grazers), the yolks were a much deeper yellow, and way tastier than “city eggs”, from chickens who only ate feed.
But that was a long time ago, I’ve no doubt the ones you get from the store in Taipei now, if they do have the deeper coloured yolks, are the result of deliberate tampering to make them so.
I heard from someone experienced in raising chickens that the more insects a hen consumes, the darker the yolk.
I always thought that colour was an indication of how good the egg was too, but it wouldn’t surprise me that that is being tampered with.
Another indicator, I thought (correct me if I’m wrong), is how well the yolk stands up (i.e. more dome shaped than flat) if you crack an egg onto a flat surface.
We get a large box of them every couple of weeks, free range. Delicious. Brown shells, strong orange yolk.